Inside what has come to be a rather boiler plate restitution press release announcing the return of 19 additional antiquities to Italy, the New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, slipped in a nice little Easter Egg when highlighting three of the object's heading back to Italy.  All had connections to well known antiquities traffickers, Gianfranco Becchina, Raffaele Monticelli, Jerome Eisenberg, Edoardo Almagià and Eugene Alexander. 

Along with these well-known names, the one line sentence quoted above refers to Michael L. Ward (b. 1943), the New York city antiquities dealer who managed a series of eponymous ancient art business entities, including:

And yes, this is the same fox in the the federal government's chicken coop who was previously appointed by then-President George H. W. Bush in 1992 to serve on the United States Cultural Property Advisory Committee, the U.S. statutory body who is responsible for the domestic implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property of 1970.

Shortly after Ward's presidential appointment, the dealer found himself under the unwanted spotlight for attempting to sell 50 pieces of important Mycenaean jewellery, referred to as the Aidonia Treasure.  Dating to the 15th century BCE, these gold funerary pieces had been plundered in 1978 from a Mycenaean cemetery at Aidonia, near Nemea, in southern Greece. 

On 30 December 1993 Ward finagled his way out of his first messy situation via an out-of-court settlement wherein Greece agreed to drop their lawsuit against Ward and his gallery and Ward's gallery was allowed to donate the looted jewellery to the newly formed Society for the Preservation of Greek Heritage in Washington, D.C.   

In a stitch-up similar to Leonard Stern's later gifting of 161 works of Cycladic art via the Institute of Ancient Greek Culture of Delaware, Ward’s strategic use of, and donation to, a nonprofit charitable organisation enabled him to recoup his acquisition costs via a nice sized federal income-tax write-off.

Evidently, undeterred by this close call, the New York dealer continued to take risks, (and profited from) the purchase and sale of illicit antiquities via several networks of suppliers, who one by one, and over many years, were unveiled as corrupt. 

Ward's own "skin in the game" is clearly spelled out, beginning on page 114 of the Michael Steinhardt Statement of Facts document, where it is stated:

During this time, he [Ward] bought antiquities directly from known traffickers such as Giovanni Franco Becchina and Edoardo Almagià. He then sold them— typically with no listed provenance—to U.S. museums and prominent collectors, including Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman and Steinhardt. Ward’s attitude for due diligence and provenance is demonstrated by a 1992 fax to Steinhardt, in which he advises Steinhardt that “[t]he more you inquire about details of ownership, etc. the less likely you will appear (if there is, God forbid a question) a credible bona fide purchaser. Michael, you want to appear as dumb as possible!”

This document also describes Ward’s connection to the network of Italian dealer Gianfranco Becchina and as the direct purchaser of more than a dozen looted Italian artefacts documented in the business records of antiquities trafficker Edoardo Almagià.

Cyrene Deity - Steinhardt-Albertson Dt.76*

A strikingly rare piece, this sculpture is likewise named in the Michael Steinhardt Statement of Facts, and was formally surrendered by the disgraced New York collector-mogul in early December 2021.  One of only ten known half-figured goddesses of this type, originating from the Necropolis of Cyrene, Steinhardt had purchased Dt.76 from Michael L. Ward on 20 November 2000 for the spritely sum of $1,200,000.   

A man of many "pezzini"

As mentioned in an earlier ARCA blog post this week, Matteo Messina Denaro, the former fugutive Cosa Nostra boss, was interrogated on February 13, 2023 for almost two hours at a maximum security prison in Italy.  There, the crime boss fielded many  questions, and sometimes duelled with Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia and deputy prosecutor Paolo Guido when their questions struck too close to home.   

According to the official transcript of their exchange, which covers 69 printed pages and is marked in several places with the handwritten word “omissis”, (used to mark redactions in the interrogation), the Cosa Nostra boss, curated his words carefully.  In many cases he only only incriminated himself verbally in specific areas where there was already overwhelming evidence of specific and proven actions.  In other instances, he obliquely ignored questions he didn't want to answer, while seemingly going off on tangents, as if he wanted his say on key subjects to be memorialised so that others might read and interpret his statements later. 

Speaking to the two magistrates, Messino Denaro again distanced himself from the murder of Giuseppe Di Matteo.  Repeating what he had previously told investigating Judge Alfredo Montaldo, who had questioned him in relation to another trial in which he is accused of attempted extortion.  The boss admitted to prosecutors De Lucia and Guido that he played a role in the 12 year old's kidnapping on November 23, 1993 and made it clear that seizing the child was a volley designed to coerce the father, Cosa Nostra informant Santino Di Matteo, into retracting statements given to the Anti-Mafia District Directorate (DDA) of Palermo.

Giuseppe was escorted out of horse stables in Villabate by four mafiosi dressed as policemen.  His kidnappers had promised him that they were bringing him to see his father.  Once under their control, the child was held hostage for a total of 779 days in various locations between the provinces of Palermo, Trapani, and Agrigento.  

Ironically, at one point the boy was taken, hooded and locked in the trunk of a car, to a farmhouse in Campobello di Mazara, the same village where Messina Denaro was  found to be hiding at the time of his January 16, 2023 capture.  After years as a hostage, and increasingly becoming a liability to his captors, Giuseppe was strangled to death on January 11, 1996 in the Giambascio countryside outside Palermo. His body was then dissolved in acid. 

Matteo Messina Denaro was involved in the massacres of 1993, including this one in Florence in via Georgofili

In July of this year, the Caltanissetta court of appeal confirmed Matteo Messina Denaro's life sentence for his role in dozens of murders including Giuseppe's.  The others include: 

• The May 23, 1992 bombing which killed anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife, and three officers of their police escort as their cars passed near the small town of Capaci; 
• The July 19, 1992 bombing in Via Mariano D'Amelio (Palermo) which killed Judge Paolo Borsellino and five members of his security detail; 
• The 1993 bombings carried out at art and religious sites in Milan, Florence and Rome that killed 10 people and injured 40 others: 

During his interrogation Matteo Messina Denaro denied being involved in the trafficking in drugs, but openly admitted to prosecutors other things they already knew and had confirmed, such as having regularly passed pizzinu (small piece of paper, containing sometimes coded messages) with convicted Cosa Nostra “boss of bosses” Bernardo Provenzano, who once headed the Mafia's powerful Clan dei Corleonesi. 

In these messages, sent while both men were already fugitives from justice, Messina Denaro admitted that the pair asked one another for favours, but his admission of his relation with Provenzano during this interrogation wasn't revelatory.  Investigators already had undeniable proof of the pair's communication in the form of ten pizzini, sent between 2003 and 2006, which agents had recovered in Provenzano's hideout when he was captured in Montagna dei Cavalli near Corleone on April 11, 2006. 

The Farm Hideout of Bernardo Provenzano

One of those messages is practically a testament of fealty by Messina Denaro to Provenzano and spoke with deference to the crime boss saying:

"Lei è sempre nel mio cuore e nei miei pensieri, se ha bisogno di qualcosa da me è superfluo dire che sono a sua completa disposizione e sempre lo sarò. La prego di stare sempre molto attento, le voglio troppo bene".  

In another, writing as his nephew "Alessio," Messina Denaro wrote to his Uncle Bernardo saying:

"I know the rules and I respect them, the proof that I know the rules and that I'm respecting lies precisely in the fact that I'm turning to you to fix this unpleasant affair, this for me is respecting the rules.  You tells me that money in life isn't everything and that there are good things that money doesn't can buy. I totally agree with you, because I have always thought that one can be a man without a lira and one can be full of money and be mud." 

Offering both a mundane and fascinating image of himself on the lam, a substantial part of the Corleonese godfather's interrogation statements focus on the time period in his life immediately leading up to his capture.  Perhaps because by this period he understood that the clock was ticking and understanding that a) he couldn't hide forever and b) he needed help from others given his declining health.  

Some of his statements appear to be attempts to exonerate some of those individuals, who have been arrested on suspicion of having helped the Cosa Nostra boss during his illness, including statements in defence of Doctor Alfonso Tumbarello, whom Messina Denaro told the magistrates: 

"knows nothing."

Other individuals close to the boos faired less well during the Messina Denaro's ramblings.  

When speaking about undergoing medical care in Palermo under the false name of Andrea Bonafede, as an outpatient at the multi-specilaity hospital La Maddalena, Messina Denaro described several of the steps he needed in order to obtain false identity documents, knowing that he could not undergo chemotherapy and medical treatment in the state's medical institution directly under his own name. 

In this part of the interview Messina Denaro stated:

"I had a friendship with Andrea Bonafede, but a remote friendship because his father worked for us, for my father and then my father was a friend of his uncle, he had a another uncle suspected mafia convicted of mafia".

Investigators contend that in addition to lending his name, Bonafede received 20,000 euros from the Matteo Messina Denaro to buy a house in western Sicily that would serve as one of the fugitive's hideouts.

Messina Denaro also told the magistrates about a second assumed identity, used in the city of Campobello di Mazara, the Sicilian town that sheltered him.  Here he was known under the pseudonym “Francesco”, a Palermitan man who purportedly relocated from the city to the smaller town while caring for his ailing mother and two elderly aunts.  

Living dual identities while hiding in plain site within the Campobello community, Messina Denaro also admitted that in addition to travelling back and forth to the Palermo hospital for treatment, either alone or with an escort, he had openly visited Campobello's bakeries, greengrocers, and supermarkets.  He also played poker and eat in  local restaurants. Again, nothing extremely revelatory, as receipts and objects found in his hiding places confirm some of the his admitted activities. 

What is more of interest to readers of ARCA's Art Crime blog were the from-the-horse's-mouth affirmations made during this hour and forty minute interrogation that confirm directly from the source that Matteo Messina Denaro's family, and that of his father, Francesco Messina Denaro, capo mandamento in Castelvetrano and head of the mafia commission of the Trapani region, sustained their livelihoods, to some extent, by the proceeds of antiquities crimes.

Messina Denaro's verbal admissions concretise a written statement previously attributed to him, which was already mentioned in an article published in 2009 by Rino Giacalone for Antimafia Duemila.  In that article, the journalist refers to an intercepted "pizzini" written by Messina Denaro where the crime boss wrote almost word for word, what he admitted to during this interrogation.  

"With the trafficking of works of art we support our family."

Francesco Messina Denaro as readers of ARCA's blog may recall was already believed to have been behind the theft of the famous Efebo of Selinunte, a 5th century BCE statue of Dionysius Iachos, stolen on October 30, 1962 and recovered in 1968 through the help of Rodolfo Siviero. 

Matteo Messina Denaro was verbose when speaking to his dead father's and the family's involvement in the illicit antiquities trade.  He also mentions that his family bought from everyone and laundered antiquities illegally removed from Sicily via Switzerland, in an enterprise which supporting some 30 members of his family, including some who were incarcerated and others like himself who were on the run.  But the boss was far more laconic when asked directly if he knew Castelvetrano ancient art dealer Gianfranco Becchina.  In response to the PM's query in this regard, he answered: 

"lo conosco perché è un paesano mio, a prescindere, anche senza i beni... i pezzi archeologici, lo conosco lo stesso,  perché siamo paesani."

In October 2018, following a formal request by the Deputy Prosecutor for the District Anti-Mafia Directorate Carlo Marzella, preliminary reexamination judge of of the Court of Palermo, Antonella Consiglio, dismissed the charge of mafia association against Becchina citing in her decision that the accusations used for the basis of the charge, made originally via testimonies given by verbose mafia defector Vincenzo Calcara, had been deemed "unreliable". 

Back in 1992, Calcara, and now deceased former drug dealer Rosario Spatola,  incriminated Gianfranco Becchina for alleged association with the Campobello di Mazara and Castelvetrano clans, implying that there was a gang affiliate active in Switzerland whose role it was to sell ancient artefacts originating from the mab's black market.  At the time of his testimony, much of Calcara's information was discounted as many were skeptical that he had actual knowledge of the facts he represented or whether he invented things for his own benefit.

Matteo Messina Denaro's statements during his February interrogation however confirm that a network of criminals funnelled numerous illicit antiquities from Sicily through the art market in Switzerland, which flowed onward, into world museums.  But the mafia boss stopped short however, on confirming, by name, whose hands, these works of ancient art passed through. 

Like Provenzano before him, Matteo Messina Denaro, at least for now, seems to be determined to be his own custodian of many secrets, especially those which might openly implicate living individuals, who have direct or indirect relationships with the Cosa boss and result in their arrest and/or convictions.  Facing a terminal illness, Messina Denaro's statements are well-guarded, and for the most part his scant confessions during the interrogation seem wholly performative.  

Like so many mobsters before him, it seems that he plans to carry most of the Cosa Nostra's bloody business dealings with him to his grave. 

By:  Lynda Albertson

On Monday, January 23, 2023, at 1 pm in Rome, a formal ceremony will be held regarding the return to Italy, from the United States, of 58 antiquities valued at nearly $19 million.  This event will be held at the Ministry of Culture's Sala Spadolini inside the Consiglio Nazionale al Collegio Romano.

The objects returned are the direct result of investigations in the United States regarding international traffickers of antiquities conducted by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the District Attorney's Office in New York in Manhattan, in collaboration with the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale (TPC).  

Present for the event will be the Italy's Minister of Culture, Gennaro Sangiuliano,  the Deputy Prosecutor of the Republic at the Court of Rome, Angelantonio Racanelli; the Commander of the Carabinieri TPC, General B. Vincenzo Molinese; and New York Assistant District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos. 

This event will be direct streamed via the YouTube channel of Italy's Ministry of Culture for those who wish to attend the ceremony digitally. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-RcYKNBHtk&ab_channel=MiC_Italia

Marble head of Athena, ca. 200 BCE

In discussing these returns in a press release issued by the New York County District Attorney's Office, the New York authorities stated that these artefacts had been trafficked by Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina, Pasquale Camera and Edoardo Almagiá.  Twenty one of the pieces had been seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art while the other thirty-seven were recovered from a New York collector and an antiquities dealer.

When speaking of these objects homecoming to Italy, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., was quoted as saying:

“These 58 pieces represent thousands of years of rich history, yet traffickers throughout Italy utilised looters to steal these items and to line their own pockets. For far too long, they have sat in museums, homes, and galleries that had no rightful claim to their ownership.”  

Discussing the recent Italian restitutions Bragg also addressed the difficulty and time needed to work these complicated cultural property crime cases stating:

“Exposing these schemes takes years of diligent and difficult investigative work, and I applaud our team of prosecutors and analysts, who in coordination with our law enforcement partners, are continuing to make unparalleled progress in returning stolen antiquities.”  

Assistant US District Attorney Col. Matthew Bogdanos, who heads up the Manhattan Office's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, and who will be present at Monday's ceremony, has often related his department's work to an axiom of jurisprudence “that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.” R v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy, 1 KB 256, 259 (1924).  Something this publicly streamable restitution will undoubtedly demonstrate.  

Each of these objects should be viewed as a reminder to collectors, dealers, and art institutions, that the US authorities treat stolen cultural property seriously and public prosecutors continue to pursue the rightful return of plundered goods.

Police standing watch outside Messino Denaro's residence in Campobello di Mazara

Following the arrest of fugitive mafia super boss Matteo Messina Denaro, there are some interesting avenues worth exploring regarding the diversification of mafia holdings. One of which may, or may not, strike close to home with regards to the  economic activities of 83-year-old former antiquities dealer Gianfranco Becchina in his later years.  Messina Denaro was captured yesterday after 30 years on the run.

Back in May 2022 Italy's Direzione Investigativa Antimafia, the country's anti-mafia investigation division, issued a confirmation confiscation decree on Gianfranco Becchina's property holdings, based upon a request from the Public Prosecutor's Office of Palermo.  As per that decree, the DIA's action finalised the confiscation of a significant portion of Becchina's movable, real estate and corporate assets "attributable to a well-known international trader of works of art art and artefacts of historical-archaeological value suspected of links with the mafia gangs, in particular in the province of Trapani." While the DIA's final seizure announcement didn't name Becchina as the businessman living in Castelvetrano, whose assets were seized, the regional and National newspapers did.   

But back to yesterday's arrest of the mafia crime boss

A municipality in a strategic position, Campobello di Mazara is a town of 11 thousand inhabitants closely rooted to the mafia, with some residents in these days even lamenting his arrest, saying the Trapani cosca put food on the tables. The city is also home to Alfonso Tumbarello, the physician now under investigation for having treated Andrea Bonafede, alias Matteo Messina Denaro, who is also the doctor of the real Andrea Bonafede. Tumbarello, it is reported wrote prescriptions in Bonafede's name for the cosa nostra boss.

It is also home to mafia boss Francesco Luppino and loyalist Raffaele Urso, AKA Cinuzzo.  Wire interceptions confirmed that Luppino, arrested in September 2022, was in close contact with Messina Denaro for land management.  While Urso, the boss's ambassador to business in Italy's capital, was arrested in April 2018, and sentenced to 18 years and 4 months in prison for his involvement in the Trapani clan.  

Other interesting Campobello di Mazara residents include the former city councillor, Calogero Jonn Luppino, who had 6 million euros in assets seized for mafia association, including 10 companies and related business complexes, 6 parcels of land, 14 bank accounts, 1 motor vehicle, 1 racehorse, cash, and gold bars.  That Luppino was involved in mafia rackets and extortion which forced various businesses in the Trapani area to install gambling devices in their businesses or risk threatening retaliation.  

Even the city's former mayor Ciro Caravà, was indicted in 2012 for mafia association as part of the Campus Belli anti-mafia operation.  Following his arrest the Municipality was dissolved for mafia infiltration on July 27, 2012.  Strangely, after  Caravà's sentence was overturned and he was released from custody, he died by suffocation, at age 58, purportedly trying to swallow a piece of bread. 

All this to say that Campobello di Mazara is not your typical bucolic Sicilian town, making it not at all surprising that this boss was able to hide in plain site here. 

But who is Giovanni Luppino, aside from being Messina Denero's driver?  

This Luppino is not believed to be a relation to  Messina Denaro loyalist Franco Luppino.  Nor, it is claimed, is he a relation to an olive oil producer of the same name.  However, the driver, Giovanni Luppino also worked in the olive oil biz and reportedly had storage warehouses in Campobello di Mazara and Castelvetrano and worked with wholesalers buyers from the Bay of Naples as well as local growers of Nocellara del Belìce olives, a protected denomination of origin (PDO) olive varietal, consumed as table olives and used for the production of extra-virgin oil.

If this olive sounds familiar to ARCA's blog readers it is because Gianfranco Becchina also invested in this money-making olive.   Beginning in 1989, one of Becchina's companies produced his own Nocellara del Belìce olive oil, harvested from the olive trees on Tenuta Pignatelli, a one-hundred-acre expanse of olive groves and lemon trees with a historic main villa from the early 1800s on the outskirts of Castelvetrano, once owned by the Princess Pignatelli of Spain.  

Sold in upscale boutiques, Becchina's olive oil was marketed to USA-based customers for an eye-popping $36 a bottle and is known to have medalled in the New York International Olive Oil Competition over the course of three years, 2018, 2019, and 2021.  

Patrizia Messina Denaro - Sister of the Boss, and Capodonna representative of the Castelvetrano, family also had an olive-oil company belonging to her and her husband impounded.

Nocellara del Belìce olives are cultivated in a fertile area which encompasses the municipalities of Castelvetrano, Campobello di Mazara, Partanna, Poggioreale, Salaparuta and Santa Ninfa, all towns in the province subject to the heavy influence of the Trapani mandamento of the Cosa Nostra.  With some 5,000 olive growers who produce this kind of olive, the province of Trapani in the west of Sicily is a lucrative agricultural market, known for its mafia infiltration, as well as an important stop in the seasonal labor cycle, with the majority of harvesters being sub-Saharan Africans who are all too often exploited, treated as human farming tools, no different than tractors. 

Whether there is a connection between the mafia boss, his driver the olive oil merchant, or the former antiquities dealer has not been proven. But what is known is that in November 2017 Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate, through the Court of Trapani's penal and preventive measures section, filed a seizure order for all movable assets, including real estate and corporate enterprises attributable to Gianfranco Becchina on the basis of an order issued from the District Attorney of Palermo based upon investigations conducted by Italy's anti-mafia DIA, under the coordination of the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office.  That order resulted in the seizure of not only Becchina's cement trade business, Atlas Cements Ltd., Demetra srl., and Becchina & company srl., but also his olive oil venture, Olio Verde srl.   

Much like antiquities, olive oil is a highly lucrative and diversified, income stream making it appealing to Italy’s organised-crime syndicates

Police data shows that there is a known and profitable agromafia active in Italy related to olive cultivation.  Data also shows that all of Italy’s major crime syndicates — the Neapolitan Camorra, ’Ndrangheta, and Cosa Nostra have profited from  farming investments.  

The economic importance of agriculture for mafia organisations like Messina Denero's can be deduced from the frequency of ongoing trials and the confiscation sentences of agricultural, or agro-industrial assets, in and around the province of Trapani.  Many of which have been tied to trials and seizure orders relating to  individuals found to have been associated with Messina Denaro or his enterprises. 

With respect to olives specifically, it has long been the common view that the Neapolitans control the distribution of olives and the olive oil market in Sicily, via a price fixing of sorts, tacitly condoned, if not formally agreed upon, between the Cosa Nostra and the Camorra.  And studies have shown that members of both organised crime organisations have profited from the selling of counterfeit extra virgin olive oil, controlling farmlands, price fixing, and in some cases labor exploitation.   

How important, olive holdings are to the mechanisations of Messina Denaro's Trapani cosca has never been publicly disclosed. But we do know that this syndicate's reach extends beyond the underworld and into diversified revenue streams, like Italy’s illicit antiquities trade and the very path our food travels before reaching our supermarket trolleys and our dinner tables.  

And with margins as high as 700 percent, profits from olive oil are higher than cocaine — making it an appealing channel for money laundering. 

Back in August, ARCA wrote about a 11 August 2022 announcement made by the J. Paul Getty Museum where the museum publically stated its intention to relinquish its nearly-lifesize Apulian sculptural group "Seated Musician and Sirens" to the Italian authorities "after evidence persuaded the museum that the statues had been illegally excavated."  

In elaborating on the three sculptures' return, directors Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle of the J. Paul Getty stated "Thanks to information provided by Matthew Bogdanos and the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicating the illegal excavation of Orpheus and the Sirens, we determined that these objects should be returned." 

Their announcement strategically omitted that the New York Attorney's office had already seized the terracotta sculptures back in the Spring, in April 2022, as part of the Manhattan office's investigation into an accused Italian antiquities smuggler, Gianfranco Becchina. 

Originally brightly painted, this large-scale sculptural ensemble was purchased by John Paul Getty Sr.,  the founder of Getty Oil Company, in the spring of 1976 days after they were stolen from a plundered chamber tomb near Taranto, Italy.  Broken into hundreds of dirt-encrusted clay fragments and ultimately reconsolidated, American-born, British petroleum industrialist purchased the 3-statue group, sculpted in Tarentum at the end of the 4th century BCE for $550,000 from Bank Leu, A.G with no known provenance aside from the Swiss bank seller.

The investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, working in collaboration with the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, confirmed that the three terracotta artworks at the  Pacific Palisades' museum were sourced by local grave robbers working for Raffaele Monticelli, an intermediary trafficker who today is believed to be one of the biggest fences of archaeological finds coming from Italy, and perhaps one of the top three in Europe.

Raffaele Monticelli, sometimes referred to as the “professor from Taranto” is a former elementary school teacher now in his eighties.  He once controlled and financed clandestine excavations which systematically looted large swaths of southern Italy, particularly in Puglia, Calabria and Campania.  Listed on the now famous trafficking organigram, in which two cordata lead to Robert Hecht but by different routes, Monticelli was an active member of Gianfranco Becchina’s cordata.  Numerous transactions between the pair have been well-documented in the Becchina archive.

According to the findings of the DANY investigation and its international law enforcement partner, the broken sculptures were illegally exported out of the Italian territory in contravention of Italian laws and into Switzerland.  Once there, Becchina and Monticelli paid for the nearly-lifesize terracotta sculptural group of a Poet and Sirens to be restored.  Afterward, the sale of the sculptures was arranged through Leo Mildenberg, a Swiss numismatist, antiquities collector, and identified handler of illicit antiquities, via the Swiss private Bank Leu A.G. 

According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's Michael Steinhardt statement of facts, we can concretise, on page 36, that Raffaele Monticelli had known  relationships with Leo Mildenberg as well as the Sicilian dealer Gianfranco Becchina. 

In making his announcement of this This successful multi-jurisdictional investigation on Friday, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr., named those attorneys, officers and agencies who made this seizure and utimately this restitution possible. Those were, in order:  Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorney Yuval Simchi-Levi; Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer and Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini and Daniel Healey; and Special Agent Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations. Investigative support was provided by TPC Warrant Officer Angelo Ragusa.

Image Credit - HSI - ICE

As part of that historic accord, the museum also relinquished a red-figured Attic amphora by the Berlin Painter; a red-figured Apulian Dinos attributed to the so-called Darius Painter; a psykter with horsemen; a Laconian kylix, and 16 rare Hellenistic silver pieces experts determined were illegally excavated from Morgantina in Sicilia.  It also included a carefully-worded clause which stated:

I) The Museum in rejecting any accusation that it had knowledge of the alleged illegal provenance in Italian territory of the assets claimed by Italy, has resolved to transfer the Requested Items in the context of this Agreement. This decision does not constitute any acknowledgement on the part of the Museum of any type of civil, administrative or criminal liability for the original acquisition or holding of the Requested Items. The Ministry and the Commission for Cultural Assets of the Region of Sicily, in consequence of this Agreement, waives any legal action on the grounds of said categories of liability in relation to the Requested Items.

Admitting no wrongdoing, where there surely was some, this unprecedented and then-considered watershed resolution, put an end to a decades-old cultural property dispute, with both sides choosing the soft power weapon of collaboration and diplomacy, complete with agreed upon press releases that enabled Italy to get its stolen property back without the need for costly and sometimes fruitless litigation.  

The signing of this 2006 agreement was thought to usher in a new spirit of cooperation between universal museums and source nations that those working in the field of cultural restitution hoped would permanently alter the balance of power in the international cultural property debate.  At the time of its signing at the Italian cultural ministry, the Met's then-director, Philippe de Montebello, said the agreement "corrects the improprieties and errors committed in the past."

Heritage advocates applauded the agreement, hopeful that museums around the globe would begin to more proactively explore their own problematic accessions and apply stricter museum acquisition policies to prevent looted material from entering into museum collections.  Coupled with collaborative loan agreements, museums and source country accords like this one, combined with strongly worded ethics advisories, like the one set forth that same year by the International Council of Museums in their ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums should have served to eliminate the bulk of problematic museum purchases and donations without the need for piece by piece requests for restitution and protracted and costly litigation. 

But has it? 

The aforementioned ICOM document clearly states: 

4.5 Display of Unprovenanced Material

Museums should avoid displaying or otherwise using material of questionable origin or lacking provenance. They should be aware that such displays or usage can be seen to condone and contribute to the illicit trade in cultural property.

8.5 The Illicit Market

Members of the museum profession should not support the illicit traffic or market in natural or cultural property, directly or indirectly.

Yet, here we are, 16 years after that signing of the Met-Italy accord, with the same universal museum [still] hanging on to and displaying material of questionable origin, long after their questionable handlers have been proven suspect. Likewise, 16 years later, and with the persistence of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at New York District Attorney's Office in Manhattan, we see another 21 objects being seized last month from the largest art museum in the Western Hemisphere.   

In total, some 27 artefacts have been confiscated in the last year from the Metropolitan Museum of Art,  In 2022 alone, five search warrants have resulted in seizures of pieces from within the museum's collection,  demonstrating that the Met, and other universal museums like it, (i.e., the Musée du Louvre and the Louvre Abu Dhabi) have yet to satisfactorily master the concepts of “provenance” research and “due diligence”. 

Founded in 1870, the MMA's mission statement states that it "collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across time and cultures in order to connect all people to creativity, knowledge, ideas, and one another."  Yet, despite holding many problematic artefacts purchased, not only the distant past, but also in the recent, the Met still struggles with the practical steps it should be taking regarding object provenance and exercising due diligence, both before and after accessioning purchases and donated material into their collection.

As everyone [should] know by now, the concept of provenance refers to the history of a cultural object, from its creation to its final destination.  Due diligence, on the other hand, refers to a behavioural obligation of vigilance on the part of the purchaser, or any person involved in the transfer of ownership of a cultural object, (i.e., museum curators, directors, legal advisors etc.,).  This need for due diligence stretches beyond the search for the historical provenance of the object, but needs to also strive to establish whether or not an object has been stolen or illegally exported.  

So while we applaud the Metropolitan Museum of Art for having been fully supportive of the Manhattan district attorney’s office investigations, as has been mentioned in relation to the August 2022 seizure, we would be remiss to not  question why, in the last 16 years, and despite the fact that the “Met’s policies and procedures in this regard have been under constant review over the past 20 years,” the museum has still not addressed these problematic pieces head on.  

This museum is home to more than two million objects. Despite the responsibility and gravitas required for building and caring for such a large collection of the world's cultural and artistic heritage, the Met has yet to establish a single dedicated position, with the requisite and necessary expertise, to proactively address the problematic pieces it has acquired in the past, and to serve as a set of much needed set of breaks, when evaluating future acquisitions, so that the next generation of identified traffickers, don't also profit from the museum's coffers as they did with the $3.95 million dollar golden coffin inscribed for Nedjemankh and five other Egyptian antiques worth over $3 million confiscated from the museum under a May 19 court order.  

For the most part, provenance has been carried out haphazardly, and by only one or two people, working in specific departments, primarily in curatorial research rolls that only covering specific historical time frames or one or two material cultures. The lack of that comprehensive expertise brings us to apologetic press statements and a plethora of seizures like ones we have seen over the last year.  

But moving on to what was seized at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 13 July 2022. The $11 million worth of objects include: 

a. A bronze plate dated ca. 550 BCE ,measuring 11.25 inches tall, and valued at $300,000.  

This artefact was donated by Norbert Schimmel, a trustee at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who, during his tenure, was member of the Met's acquisitions committee.  By 1982 he was known to be purchasing antiquities from Robin Symes via Xoilan Trading Inc., Geneva.  This firm shared a Geneva warehouse address (No. 7 Avenue Krieg in Geneva) with two of Giacomo Medici’s companies, Gallerie Hydra and Edition Services.

Symes is noted as being one of the leading international merchants of clandestinely excavated archeology.  His name appears in connection with four different objects in this Met seizure. 

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b. A marble head of Athena, dated ca. 200 BCE, measuring 19 inches tall and valued at $3,000,000.  

This Marble Head of Athena was with Robin Symes until 1991, then passing to Brian Aitken of Acanthus Gallery in 1992.  It was then sold to collectors Morris J. and Camila Abensur Pinto, who in turn, loaned the artefact to the Met in 1995.  It was then purchased by the Metropolitan in 1996.  

Symes's name appears in connection with four different objects in this Met seizure, while Aitken's name comes up frequently as having bought from red flag dealers.  His name appears in connection with two different objects in this Met seizure. 

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c. A fragmentary terracotta neck-amphora, dated ca. 540 BCE, measuring 14.75 inches tall and valued at $350,000. 

This fragmented neck-amphora was purchased by the Met from Robert Hecht (Atlantis Antiquities) in 1991.  Four years later, Hecht's name would appear in seized evidence outlining his key position at the top of two trafficking cordata on a pyramid org chart which spelled out seventeen individuals involved in one interconnected illicit trafficking network.  

Archaeological artefacts sold by Hecht have been traced to the collections of the Met, the British Museum, the Musee du Louvre, and numerous other U.S. and European institutions, many of which have been determined to have come from clandestine excavations.

Polaroids photographs of this artefact, shot after the advent of Polaroids in 1972, are among the seized materials found within the Giacomo Medici archive.  These photos  depict the neck-amphora balanced precariously on a rose-colored upholstered chair. 

As mentioned above, Hecht's name appears in connection with three different objects in this Met seizure. 

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d. A terracotta red-figure kylix, dated ca. 490 BCE, measuring 13 inches in diameter, and valued at $1,200,000.

This fragmented kylix was purchased from Frederique Marie Nussberger-Tchacos in 1988 and consolidated with other terracotta fragments purchased earlier from Robert Hecht in 1979. 

In 2002 Tchacos was the subject of an Italian arrest warrant in connection with antiquities laundering.  And again, as mentioned above, Hecht's name appears in connection with three different objects in this Met seizure. 

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e. A marble head of a horned youth wearing a diadem, dated 300-100 BCE measuring 14 inches tall, and valued at $1,500,000.

This marble head of a horned youth wearing a diadem passed through the ancient art collection of Nobel Prize winner Kojiro Ishiguro, another client of Robin Symes.  It was then purchased by Robert A. and Renee E. Belfer when sold by the Ishiguro family via Ariadne Galleries.  Afterwards it was gifted by the Belfers to the Met in 2012. 

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f. A gilded silver phiale, dated ca. 600-500 BCE, measuring 8 inches in diameter, and valued at $300,000. 

This long-contested gilded silver phiale was purchased via Robert E. Hecht in 1994.  As mentioned previously Hecht's name appears in connection with three different objects in this Met seizure. 

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g. A glass situla (bucket) with silver handles, dated ca. 350-300 BCE, measuring 10.5 inches tall, and valued at $400,000.

This unique glass situla was purchased by the Met through Merrin Gallery in 2000. Photos and proof of sale of this artefact are documented in the archive of suspect dealer Gianfranco Becchina.  Correspondence within in the Becchina Archive cache of business records shows communication between the Sicilian dealer and Ed Merrin and/or his gallery dating back to the 1980s.  In the book, The Medici Conspiracy, by Peter Watson and Cecelia Todeschini, the writers cite one letter written by Merrin Gallery to Becchina, where Becchina was asked not to write his name on the back of photos of antiquities he sent for consideration.

Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure. Merrin Gallery appears in connection with multiple objects within this seizure. 

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h. A terracotta lekythos, dated ca. 560-550 BCE, measuring 5.3 inches tall and valued at $20,000.

This terracotta lekythos was purchased from Galerie Antike Kunst Palladion in 1985 the same year Becchina sold a suspect krater by the Ixion painter to the Musée du Louvre. 

As mentioned above, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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i. A terracotta mastos, dated ca. 520 BCE, measuring 5.5 inches in diameter and valued at $40,000.

Before he even moved to Switzerland, Gianfranco Becchina was already selling to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1975.  According to the Met's records, which we believe contain a date error, this terracotta nipple-shaped cup was purchased from Antike Kunst Palladion in 1975.  However, records show that Becchina emigrated from Castelvetrano in Sicily to Basel, Switzerland after having undergone a bankruptcy procedure in 1976 and formed the Swiss business that same year.

As mentioned previously, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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j. A fragment of a black-figure terracotta plate, dated ca. 550 BCE, measuring 3 by 2.5 inches and valued at $4,000.

This fragment, attributed to Lydos, was purchased by the Metropolitan from Galerie Antike Kunst Palladion in 1985. 

As mentioned above, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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k. A fragment of a black-figure terracotta amphora, dated ca. 530 BCE, measuring 2 by 2.6 inches and valued at $1,500.

This fragment, attributed to the Amasis Painter, was purchased from Galerie Antike Kunst Palladion in 1985.

As mentioned previously, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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1. A pair of Apulian gold cylinders, dated ca. 600-400 BCE, measuring 2.25 inches in diameter and valued at $10,000. 

This pair of gold Apulian cylinders was gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981 by Mr. and Mrs. Gianfranco Becchina.

As mentioned above, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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m. A bronze helmet of Corinthian type, dated 600-550 BCE, measuring 8.5 by 7.75 and valued at $225,000.

This helmet is one of five Met-donated helmets identified as being part of the Bill Blass collection between 1992 and 2002.  It joined the Met in 2003.  Within the Gianfranco Becchina archive is a page of five Polaroid photographs,which depict multiple bronze helmets, including those from the Bill Blass collection which are part of this seizure. 

Also, among the Becchina archive documentary material are two business documents believed to be related to these transactions. 

The first is a 1989 multi-page export document for a grouping of objects being exported to Merrin Gallery indicating the sale of three helmets, one of which is described as "one South Italian Greek Bronze Helmet of the so-called Corinthian type, with bronze pins remaining for the attachment of the lining. "

The second is a fax correspondence from Becchina to Samuel Merrin discussing some sort of transfer regarding a single helmet and Acanthus Gallery.

As mentioned previously, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.  Merrin Gallery appears in connection with multiple objects within this seizure. 

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n. A bronze helmet of South Italian-Corinthian type, dated mid-4th-mid-3rd century BCE, measuring 7.75 inches tall and valued at $125,000.

Like the previous one, this helmet is one of five Met-donated helmets identified as being part of the Bill Blass collection between 1992 and 2002.  It joined the Met in 2003.  Within the Gianfranco Becchina archive is a page of five Polaroid photographs, which depict multiple bronze helmets, including those from the Bill Blass collection which are part of this seizure. 

Also, among the Becchina archive documentary material are two business documents believed to be related to these transactions. 

The first is a 1989 multi-page export document for a grouping of objects being exported to Merrin Gallery indicating the sale of three helmets, Two of which are described as "two South Italian Greek Bronze Helmets, both decorated with incised animals, one with restings [sic] of a plume holder on top."

The second is a fax correspondence from Becchina to Samuel Merrin discussing some sort of transfer regarding a single helmet and Acanthus Gallery.

As mentioned previously, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.  Merrin Gallery appears in connection with multiple objects within this seizure. 

o. A bronze helmet of Apulian-Corinthian type dated 350-250 BCE, measuring 12 inches tall and valued at $175,000

Like the previous one, this is one of five Met-donated helmets identified as being part of the Bill Blass collection between 1992 and 2002.  It joined the Met in 2003.  Within the Gianfranco Becchina archive is a page of five Polaroid photographs, which depict multiple bronze helmets, including those from the Bill Blass collection which are part of this seizure. 

Also, among the Becchina archive documentary material are three paper business documents. 

The first is a 1989 multi-page export document for a grouping of objects being exported to Merrin Gallery indicating the sale of three helmets,  two of which are described as "two South Italian Greek Bronze Helmets, both decorated with incised animals, one with restings [sic] of a plume holder on top."

The second is a fax correspondence from Becchina to Samuel Merrin discussing some sort of transfer regarding a single helmet and Acanthus Gallery.

The third is a photocopy of this object with a red line through the image and v/ Me written below. While not conclusive, V/Me most likely refers to venduto (sold) Merrin.  

As mentioned previously, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.  Merrin Gallery appears in connection with multiple objects within this seizure. 

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p. A white-ground terracotta kylix attributed to the Villa Giulia Painter, dated ca. 470 BCE. measuring 6.5 inches in diameter and valued at $1,500,000.

This rare Terracotta kylix is the second highest value item of all 21 artefacts seized.  It joined the Met in 1979. Unfortunately it too was purchased via the Galerie Antike Kunst Palladion.

As mentioned above, Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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q. A marble head of a bearded man, dated 200-300 CE, measuring 12.2 inches tall and valued at $350,000.

This marble head of a bearded man joined the Met in 1993, purchased from Acanthus Gallery operated by Brian Tammas Aitken.  Gianfranco Becchina archive documents an October 1988 sales receipt to Aitken for "3 Roman Marble heads" for 85,000 Fr.  

As mentioned above, Aitken's name comes up frequently as having bought from red flag dealers and appears on two different objects in this Met seizure. Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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r. A terracotta statuette of a draped goddess, dated 450-300 BCE,  measuring 14.75 inches tall and valued at $400,000.

This terracotta statuette of a draped goddess was donated to the Met by Robin Symes in 2000, in memory of his deceased partner Christos Michaelides.  His name appears in connection with four different objects in this Met seizure. 

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s. A bronze statuette of Jupiter, dated 250-300 CE, measuring 11.5 inches tall and valued at $350,000.

This bronze statuette of Jupiter was acquired by the Met via Bruce McAlpine in 1997. Prior to his death, UK dealer McAlpin had dealings with Robin Symes, Giacomo Medici, and Gianfranco Becchina.

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t. Marble statuettes of Castor and Pollux (on loan), dated 400-500 CE, measuring 24 inches tall and valued at $800,000.

The Dioskouroi had been on anonymous loan to the Metropolitan Museum since 2008 as L.2008.18.1, .2. While the Museum's loan accession record has been removed, a Met catalogue informs us that the statues were "probably from the Mithraeum in Sidon, excavated in the 19th century". 

With a bit more digging Dr. David Gill was able to get further details from the Met itself.  They indicated the pair had come from an "ex private collection, Lebanon; Asfar & Sarkis, Lebanon, 1950s; George Ortiz Collection, Geneva, Switzerland; collection of an American private foundation, Memphis, acquired in the early 1980s".

At some point along their journey, the pair passed through the Merrin Gallery where they were published by Cornelius C. Vermeule, in Re:Collections (Merrin Gallery, 1995).

While a seemingly professional photo of these objects exists in the confiscated Robin Symes Archive, that photo depicts the object prior to restoration.  In that photo,  Castor's leg, and the leg of his horse behind him, are missing.  By the time they arrive to the Met on loan, the two limbs have been reattached. 

As mentioned above, Merrin Gallery appears in connection with multiple objects within this seizure. 

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and lastly,

u. A fragment of a terracotta amphora attributed to the Amasis Painter, dated ca. 550 BCE, measuring 3.25 by 4.5 inches and valued at $2,000. 

This terracotta amphora fragment is attributed to the Amasis Painter. It is one of many examples of fragments bought via Gianfranco Becchina's gallery, Galerie Antike Kunst.  It was acquired+gifted by Dietrich von Bothmer to the Met in 1985.

Gianfranco Becchina's name or company name appears in connection with twelve different objects in this Met seizure.

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But these seized pieces are more than the sum of these numbers.  They tell us a lot about this one museum's particular lethargy in dealing with or voluntarily relinquishing problematic pieces before being handed a court order.

One thing is certain though, museums reputations certainly do not benefit when dragged into adversarial, long-winded, and sometimes costly claims for restitution.  Nor do they benefit from having their name up in lights when objects are seized on the basis of investigations the museum would have been wise to have done themselves. 

Waiting until either of the above happens also runs counter to, and impedes, the essential purposes of museums, which should be about presenting their collections in innovative ways, and fostering understanding between communities and cultures. The Met would have been better off providing open and equitable discourse about their collection's problems before their hand was forced, as waiting until after says a lot about their true collecting values. 

When museums hedge their bets, hoping that the public's memory is short, or crossing their fingers that source countries are too disorganised, too undermanned or to poor to spend hours looking for problematic works they will pay the price later.  Far better to avoid the painfully slow, one seizure after another reality, and the negative spotlight and mistrust that comes with it, by doing what all museums should be doing, i.e., conscientiously conducting the necessary provenance research and due diligence on their past and potential acquisitions.

Image Credit - HSI - ICE

To close this article, we would like to announce that today, New York DA Bragg returned 58 stolen antiquities valued at over $18 million, to the people of Italy, including a goodly number of the 21 pieces mentioned above.

Image Credit - HSI - ICE

In closing, ARCA would like to thank DA Bragg, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, Chief of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit; Assistant District Attorneys Yuval Simchi-Levi, Taylor Holland, and Bradley Barbour, Supervising Investigative Analyst Apsara Iyer, Investigative Analysts Giuditta Giardini, Alyssa Thiel, Daniel Healey, and Hilary Chassé; who alongside Special Agents John Paul Labbat and Robert Mancene of Homeland Security Investigations as well as Warrant Officer Angelo Ragusa of the Comando Carabinieri Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, Dr. Daniella Rizzo, Dr. Stefano Alessandrini, and Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis gave crucial contributions to the knowledge we have about when, and where, and with whom, these recovered artefacts circulated. 

ARCA would also like to personally thank Assistant District Attorney Bogdanos for the trust he puts in the contribution of forensic analysts inside ARCA and working with other organisation. He and his team's approach and openness has proven time and time again, that such collaboration is worthwhile and fruitful. 

By:  Lynda Albertson